August 5 2008

6:45 am

Calm and very bright again

Berry pickers arriving and starting to pick.

7:00 am

The 1 HK was soaking wet from dew, and sitting on grass field. Put up on metal post to dry out. Deployed the other HK at NW corner, to 1/2 elevation height. Took 10 minutes.

Observed 5 robins, 3 finches, 0 starlings at the north west corner of field. Saw little activity to south. There are about 30 field workers in the field. Robins are for the most part ignoring them or flying around their locations, still landing in the field.

8:15 am

Deployed the HK that has dried on metal post 1/2 way between woods and field, is at 1/4 elevation height. Took 5 minutes.

Took no observations of birds.

1:00 pm

Took down both Helikites for good. Stored. Took 30 minutes.

8:00 pm

Took down all my JacKites for good. Stored. Took 1 hour.

I called the grower to inform him all the kites were down and gone.

I received a wonderful response from him, "There was so little damage to the fruit!" He also thanked me for providing the help with monitoring the field with the kites. Also stated how impressive it was to get the vultures and eagle to show up and "scare the shit out of the birds." Yep that was fun.

I asked if we could "debrief" in a couple weeks, asking what went right, what did not. He agreed.

CS

REMEMBER: The villain is the Starling. It is not the grower.